CHAP. X.
HINTS ON FIELDING.
The essence of good fielding is, to start before the ball is hit, and to pick up and return straight to the top of the bails, by one continuous action. This was the old Wykehamist style—old, I hope not yet extinct, past revival—(thus had we written, March 1851, and three months after the Wykehamists won both their school matches at Lord's);—for, some twenty years since, the Wykehamist fielding was unrivalled by any school in England. Fifteen years ago Mr. Ward and, severally and separately, Cobbett instanced a Winchester Eleven as the first fielding they had ever seen at Lord's. And among this chosen number were the yet remembered names of R. Price, F. B. Wright, Knatchbull, and Meyrick. These hardy Trojans—for the ball never came too fast for them—commenced fagging out long, very long, before they were indulged in batting, and were forced to qualify, even for fagging, by practising till they could throw over a certain neighbouring barn, and were always in bodily fear of the pains and penalties of the middle stump if ever they missed a ball. But these days of the
